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Details
(Area
code: 301)
• Glenfield Park, 12800 Layhill Rd.
In Glenmont Center, Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road :
• Wye River Hardware and Home, 942-9684
• Magruder's, 946-9290
• Country Boy Market, 942-6355
• Classic Beauty Supply, 946-2223
• Peters Studio of Dance, 949-1034
• Treatment Center, 946-8720
• Tuffy Leemans Glenmont Bowl, 942-4200
• Glenmont Barber Shop, 946-9721
• King's Custom Tailor, 949-8400
• Super Bowl II Pub, 933-4050
• Szechuan Palace, 946-3700
• Yett Gol, 949-2222
• Stained Glass Pub, 12510 Layhill Rd., 933-4444
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By Theodore Fischer, Washington Sidewalk
Those
who board the Metro at the $290.9 million Glenmont Metro station
(above and left), the final stop on the eastern end of the Red line and,
as such, "the light at the end of the tunnel," have access to
six elevators, 90 Kiss 'n' Ride spaces and a 1,800-space parking garage
accessible from Layhill Road, Georgia Avenue and Glenallan Avenue. What do
you get if you take the Metro to Glenmont? Not as much as Las Vegas
offers, but maybe more than you expect.
Walk north from the station on Layhill Road past Privacy World at Glenmont
Metrocentre (apartments are available, but they're going fast) and soon
you reach Glenfield Park, the major center in the Washington area
for pétanque, the French version of the leisurely sport of boule. Sunday
is the day for tournaments and demonstrations (call the Pétanque Club at
703-360-2585 for information), but there could be action (if that's the
right word) on Glenfield's three gravel courts at any time.
The
hub of commercial activity in this section of Wheaton is across Georgia
Avenue from the station in Glenmont Center, a strip mall that
appears to have seen (and now might see again) better days. Two upscale
stores that opened fairly recently anchor Glenmont Center's extremities:
to the east, Wye River Hardware and Home, a gussied-up and
yuppified successor to Hechinger's; to the west, Magruder's, part
of the small-scale local grocery chain whose produce puts the
competition's to shame. Glenmont also has Country Boy Market (left
and above), a longtime favorite that specializes in bulk garden supplies
(with Country Boy mulch among its 12 varieties), luscious produce from
local sources (when possible) and good deals on quantity purchases of beer
– microbrews, macrobrews and imports (wine, too).
Other services aren't the kind you usually find in a shopping center: a
Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration Express Office, for license
renewals and a few other functions; Classic Beauty Supply, which
sells its goods wholesale to the public; Peters Studio of Dance, a
33-year-old school of ballet, jazz and tap for preschoolers to adults; and
the Treatment Center, a walk-in chiropractic clinic where the
welcome mat says, "Glad to see your back!!"
In the Glenmont Arcade, the centerpiece of the center, you pass a
check-cashing service; the Glenmont Barber Shop, where flattops
still top the bill of fare ($12); and King's Custom Tailor, where
you can have a suit made from the ground up and then walk down the stairs
to Tuffy Leemans Glenmont Bowl. Established by the late Alphonse
"Tuffy" Leemans, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member who played
for the New York Giants from 1936 to 1943, it's a laid-back, no-frills,
smoky setting for duckpins, a popular local pastime in which bowlers get
three chances to knock down 10 small pins with small, hole-less bowling
balls. Duckpins is great for small children, especially if you can grab
one of the lanes with alley bumpers to plug up the gutters (extra
charge).
Places to eat around Glenmont include a snack bar in the bowling
alley, featuring sandwiches, draft beer and a trophy case of full of
Leemans memorabilia. The Super Bowl II Pub at the entrance to the
arcade is a hangout for serious Orioles boosters: It includes pool tables,
pinball, darts and a menu highlighted by pizza and crabs.
A fountain's trickling water drowns out background noise in the recently
remodeled Szechuan Palace. Yett Gol is partly Japanese but mostly
Korean, offering barbecues and casseroles cooked at the table and karaoke
on some nights.
The place most likely to experience a Metro metamorphosis is the
Stained Glass Pub, which stands cheek by jowl to the station's parking
garage. A longtime neighborhood favorite with a spacious dining room, a
bar lined with televisions – 17 of them fed by seven satellite receivers
– and live entertainment on some nights, Stained Glass' offers
sandwiches, pastas, dinner entrees and a children's menu. Stick with the
house specialty: pizza. Have one of the dozen draft beers for the
Metrorail road.
See also: Brookside Gardens – accessible to the
car-free |
